Lessons

Lesson Info

Sales Sessions

We're going to sit with these hundred images and I'm going to go through, and this is basically how it what I will say to them, I'll put it on, so if you press l on my room, I don't know if you know this, but shut the lights off if you press it again, I'll bring it back on, it'll dim it and turn it back on, so oh, I continue to I make an animal of sideshow let's see if I can an emoto is a service basis, a website that creates video slide shows and it's not terribly expensive it's maybe like two hundred fifty three dollars a year and you could make slide shows, and what I do is I make a slideshow for every single client when they first come in for their viewing session. That's the first thing I show them what I'm doing basically is grabbing a random, um, pictures and you doesn't have to be random. I just do it randomly because I'm usually doing it at the last a minute and you can make a slide show for them. Sometimes I include fusion video like I'll take some video with my iphone and wi...

ll include it into the slide show like it will maybe have them like blowing a kiss at the end or something cute on dh this is the first thing that they see and this is the first case they get if they buy the digitals in addition to the album then they will um don't get the slideshow for free but I sell it even though nobody ever buys it but I've given it a dollar value on my price list this way um they think it's worth something so I don't sell the slide shows because you know how much editing I put into my images so when I'm showing them the slide show, the images are only halfway done so I have had clients ask for the sideshow but I won't sell it to them these images aren't finished in my mind so why don't you just make them a new sideshow with their finished images at the end they want all of the images that all of them all of the proofs well who's the bus I am so why don't you tell them available? Well if they want to buy the sideshow, ok back up for one second so when you're showing them the slideshow is it all of the images? Right? Ok, stop doing that just put in maybe like twenty and make it like a minute slideshow like how long your side shows um you know what? I'm lying I do add it down to about fifty or sixty images and the site shows usually have about thirty images in there okay, so they're fifteen to twenty or whatever twenty to twenty five images that's fine show it to them we're going to start off with the teaser of your slide show you know of your images and when there she's like wow at the end I love that there's even more for you to see so um I won't even mention necessary that this light shows for sale as they seed on the price list at the end if they're like oh, I bought an album I'm debating should I put in that? Should I buy the digital images? I'll say to them you know if you do, I'll include that slide show you saw in the beginning for free and either I'll give it to them that way if they picked most of those images or I'll recreate the slide show with the images they actually chose to put in their album that's a good idea I probably might start including as a gift and I wanted to say an emoto for me when I was much slower and didn't have very many clients you can purchase it monthly so you don't have to invest the two or three hundred dollars at first I'm big an emoto fan yeah that's good to know I purchased it yearly because I like to pay once and forget about it it's kind of like it's free the rest of the year that's my clients to feel too so I would play this light show for you but we don't have video on here but just to give you an idea, maybe I'll just play it just to show I put some words on here um and normally obviously I download this onto my computer so that, um it was like maria's boudoir experience and must have fun to shape, you know, we'll show some pictures and then, um at the end, it will say, you know, we love you, we think you're hot and she did a whole bunch of stuff clothes, but, you know, maria, you are a hottie, something like that, whatever you want to say and the great thing, I'm not exactly sure what's on the slide show something to stop it, but, um, I don't need trouble, but, uh, it's great, because you can put, like I said, little video clips in you can put things in the middle something like, uh, if I did a slideshow for sarah, maybe it would say something like, oh, ok, now we bring on this smoke let's bringing the real smoke or, like little things you might want to say, or a little personal messages don't forget we're a little about customizing, so if she's like, I'm not really sure about this boost day you could put in there well that boost days rocking my socks off or whatever you want to say you know make it really personal make it something desirable for her yes um I just want to point this out how long does it take you to make the slide show like five seconds I really I don't overthink the image is my feeling is if I have one hundred twenty five images in a folder I love those hundred twenty five images right now you already chose them I worked on them they're ready my baby's so if I'm choosing twenty five pictures I'll choose five from each of it were all to sixty joppa don't care which one it is I do make sure in my mind mentally I vary the image is a little bit and I usually end with like the most fun picture or a tush picture because I like ending thanks like albums and slide shows with the touch because it's like the end kinda cute um you know, starting with something maybe a little bit more modest because she's gonna be in shock when she sees herself uh other than that it's like so routine for me I go big b p I know what song I want I know what I'm gonna say see you later I'm gonna run it overnight, you know while I go to bed doesn't take that long. I just don't like to sit there and waste my time, because if I'm waiting for it, I'll go on facebook and then three hours later, I'm like, what was he doing? So so I usually let things run over night and just in the morning, I'll zip it up, I put it in her folder and that's it, so I showed this to them and then after that, I'll go through the proofs with them back in light room, and I kind of do that same thing, that same calling process I'll basically say to them, I want you to treat every image is an individual, I want you to give me a yes or no don't think about the next image don't think about the last image just tell me if you like this image and don't worry it's not gonna be the last time you see it. These were not final decisions, okay? And she'll kind of say, okay, well, how they're too many yeses. Are there too many not know, doesn't matter no such thing as too many esses or too many notes? And I'll say that I think you're making a mistake, I'll speak up, otherwise I'll let you do your thing. And if it's a maybe it's a yes because if it's a maybe and you want to see it again just make it yes but if it's like a new then just say no and we'll go through and she'll say yes no you no yes no yes and then sometimes like she'll say like no I'm like wait what back the truck up why is that a now and she usually just says, well, I don't know I feel like I'm picking too many no, you're not taking too many oh my god if you were saying no no no I'd be sweating over here so pick away you know, like okay, yes e o you know more like if it starts like this have you ever done this thing like no, no, no, you're going oh my god, this is before I go wait, can we just stop for a second? Because I'm feeling like you I need to know what's happening here should be like, oh, no, I've already decided I'm taking the twenty photo album so I'm being very modest here about what I was picking, okay, no problem we'll go through and then she'll start with yes, yes and you okay, here's the note that I want to say I was thinking about last night I actually had a really terrible experience recently. I know that somebody asked if I ever had somebody not by something I never ever had that before until about I want to say, two months ago I had a really horrible experience. A woman showed up with her husband to say he was not a nice person to sort of an understatement. I'm not gonna use curse words on creative life, but I was surprised to see him there because usually women also hey, can I bring my husband or what? Not this is not her first good war shoot, so he had known I don't know if he knew that she did it, but he gets you got busted that I want to bring him in. Um, it's almost emotional for me to talk about because everything that I created for this woman and everything that I did for her was basically throwing out the window by her husband. He was like, um I actually I wasn't doing the viewing session I was shooting and my assistant was doing the the purchasing session and she came. I came and she gave me that look and I was like, what's going on in here, so I was like, oh, nice to meet you and he was like by the way he was like a real typical new york idiot um I'm totally getting into this boudoir business this is some scam you got going here I can't believe how much you charge for this garbage I mean it was just I mean you know she looks good but seriously she did everything in laundry if I'm paying this much money I want to see her boobs you know like just he was just such a jerk and he said hey um you know, you know I don't know what you expect from a I don't really get art and I went obviously and now my assistants like because I really debated what to do at that point the woman in me wanted to kick him out because I kind of felt like everything I'm doing here you're stomping all over and pissing on and I'm not going to allow that here I'm the boss thie other part of me was really cautious of my client I didn't wanna hurt her feelings so I was really careful they made the decision not to buy anything typically mostly because he said well I'm not spending this kind of money on something like this how hard could it be and he literally was talking about setting up the boudoir studio in his office I mean like I'll just hire photographers and I'll just send out the editing I mean he was like already like all into this e I mean more power to him if you could do it but um it was really emotional for me because I felt like I try so hard to have women find themselves this was like the fourth or fifth with our session she had done not with me but with somebody else she's clearly looking for some sort of acceptance from him or something she wasn't finding and after that I decided I wasn't gonna allow any men in my studio at any time whatsoever not for the appreciate not for the actual shoot and not after and since then I've had requests for people that say, you know, I really want to bring my husband with me, you know, he can absolutely not come with you, and the thing is that, um you have to understand he might not get it and then it'll hurt her feelings and she walked away feeling like like a piece of garbage and like, she wasted his money and she did something wrong and that's like exactly the opposite of what I want a woman to feel like when they leave my studio. So the only time I ever had experiences somebody not buying something I know it wasn't because she didn't like the pictures because she wrote to me later saying I really loved the pictures I wish my husband was such a jerk and, you know, he said I can't spend the money on them so it's unfortunate it happens it's such a rare situation, but I just want to let you know it's okay to say no. You know, if you don't want somebody to come to a viewing session even worse, when a girls that can I bring my friend? No, probably not. Not unless that friend had already come for the shoot, and she was like, the most supportive, amazing thing ever. And while you're shooting, she was going courtney with amazing oh my god. But if that's good if it's that girl that's like I can't let me chose that outfit. She's not allowed in the viewing session? Definitely not. I just wanted to address that. I think that that's kind of an important story to tell. Learn from my lesson. Yes, well, you just gave me permission to say no, because I really struggled with that. I get that request for them to bring their husband and and I don't like them there because for me, it's, it's all about the girls and it's all about having fun, and it throws that off for me and and because they're paying for it and because it is sometimes for their husbands, I've always felt like maybe I need to be in that role, so I'm glad you shared that story. Yeah I mean recently when that client said you know can I bring my husband with me and I said it was before she even had sent me money and she said you know I'm not gonna be my husband for the session but would it be okay if I bring him for the viewing and it hurt me a little bit say no because I thought to myself if she doesn't like that I might lose the client but I rather lose a client than do all that work and not make any money so when I thought that way I said you know what no you just can't and I got my retainer the next day anyway um okay so again when we're going through these with the client it's really just yes no yes no and we'll go through multiple rounds so let's say she says yes to this she said yes to this so then what will d'oh is on the second round I'll start calling up just like we did before similar photos I know how for decide to you like this one better or that one better and I never I never dissuade her from buying both I'll say to her listen there's differences here in their similarities if you want if you love both of these pictures and you're not sure if you want to choose let's move on to the next set we can come back to this later if it's too hard for you to choose so if she's like oh, you know what? I definitely love the woman I'm looking away good then we'll just automatically take the other one out but if she's unsure, I give her a little bit of room to breathe, she might want to keep both of them and you know what that's awesome for me and these are in my mind different enough that she could keep both of them and I can either separate them in the album so it wouldn't be so obvious or I can put them together they look good together too if they were almost identical except one was like, eyes up, eyes down or, you know, because their heads in a different way, I feel like you could get away with it, but if it was like almost identical, I would say to her list on their way to somewhere and if she was really adamant about like, no, I really, really want both and I would let her do it, but if I really thought it was gonna look good on an album, I'm going to speak up about it and I'm gonna just wait her from buying and it's not just about the money it's the end product, if the end product doesn't look good and what's the difference, what money she spent so we go through about three or four different rounds of that what will happen was when I get to about let's say somewhere between forty and fifty photos around forty photos I'll then take out my price list in my samples and I'll say to her okay for forty photos, I'm actually have my price list here, so let me do you actually do it? I might be okay, you know what? We're at forty photos it's a good number let's talk about it a little bit I'll take out my sample and I'll have my price you and I laid out on the line for her now I'm she's seeing this pricey after her session for the most part after her session will make an appointment for her to come back to see her pictures and that's when I'll send her a reminder with the price list. Thank you he's reminder you're coming february twenty for your viewing session you're purchasing session attached to the price sheets don't worry too much about picking what you want now your photos will decide for you it's sort of the women have any idea what price tags they would be looking at for because I tell them in the beginning like when you sit down like with contract on retainer so they don't know until after they have shot the photos they have an idea yeah, they don't know my they have not seen my exact priceless unless they're very adamant I say can I see what you're priceless? But so you might say, you know you want to be investing between, you know, one million and two million that would be hostile, yeah, yeah, no, I'll tell them on average, my clients spend between twelve and fourteen hundred dollars and some people spend less and some people spend more, but if you're comfortable with twelve to fourteen hundred where I might say thirteen to fifteen hundred or whatever it might be that I feel like saying at the moment, but it is around that area about twelve to fourteen hundred is very common, and that is where I get that number is that, uh, this bottom album is my most popular version of that the classic album that I get from white house custom color is between twelve and fourteen hundred dollars that's the most popular album myself, a lot of people at the digitals on top of it so they will spend more or they'll add print so they're add other things, but on average my clients are mostly spending twelve to fourteen hundred dollars on that album and that's a nice album that's like somewhere between twenty and thirty photos for a custom design album I don't think that that's a ridiculous amount of money and once they're there and they pick the fourteen hundred dollar album and then they want the digitals, they're not going to say well I'm not going to spend another five hundred for the digitals I'll just just added it where I'll buy it next week so that this way you know, it's charged twice that my card and said at one time or whatever so yeah, I'm not very specific, you know, unless they specifically ask and like I said, I do that because my price she is a living and breathing object so if you book me today courtney and I mean you're not coming in until what is today february sixteenth you're not coming until april sixteenth how do you know I'm not gonna price difference in price change? I don't want to be locked in today's prices for the rest of my year sorry um does that make sense? So I'm not trying to be misleading if they want it, they can have it and I'll just say to them, listen um you know prices may vary when you come in, but they're not going to bury that much. But generally speaking, when a client here's twelve to fourteen hundred dollars they'll say one of two things will either go ok that's about what I was expecting or logo wait is that in addition to your five fifty session fee and I already know I lost that girl yeah. Oh, yeah, it is in addition. Okay, thanks. I'm gonna think about it. Okay, but when I say twelve to fourteen hundred dollars on top of the session feet, the girls that are gonna book me go. Ok, I understand. Yeah, I'm comfortable with that number. Perfect. Thank you. I'm just curious, very limited experience with in person sales. So the first one I did, she was like, so we have to pick today. And I had set it up that she was expected to purchase that day. I was just completely at a loss for you. You know why she needed to purchase that day other than you know, when is she gonna be able to see her images again? You know, I don't have time to meet with their seven times, but I didn't know howto word that I just I was at a loss. I guess what I would do is when you present the session feed. You have a session. Fear it's. A package. How does it work? It's a session fee and everything's purchased all occurred when you present the session fee. I would say it includes the viewing the purchase. Same day purchasing session. Which will be done after it takes about an hour so whatever be done after but the thing is you only let me I'm just asking you I don't know why you might have a good reason if she wanted to come back another day what's your objection to it because they don't have time I really I'm booked would it would it make sense to you if I said to you could make a better sail if she came back next week would you find the time well I'll be restructuring my business when I get back home I mean the way my studio calender was at the time I was booked three months in advance and um you know I bet you're not gonna be doing thirty shoots a month anymore or whatever you know whatever we spoke you not because I don't want you to do that anymore because I want you to charge more shoot less work smarter not harder and you'll open yourself up for time to meet with your clients a little bit more because uh in my opinion and you could totally think I'm wrong but I have to tell you this is the same exact conversation I had with sally last year I'm sally you're me and she just kept saying to me you need to do in person sales you know a week or two later and I was like sally I don't have time I don't have two kids it's a schlep to the studio I don't want to do it and she just can you just try it see what happens when my sales went from six, seventy five client to two thousand dollars a client I said okay sally I'll drive to my studio no serum you're saying ok that it's it would be okay to set up a second sales session for them to come back yeah I mean what do you know why she didn't want to say it wasn't she was actually a very pleasant client who made a very large purchase it's just um how I operate I mean if I was going to spend twelve hundred dollars I don't like to make impulse decisions and so making a decision in one hour isn't my ideal way I would like to go home and sleep on it so I assume that's probably how she felt a cz well also let me tell you from the perspective of the mother and I don't know whether she was or she wasn't purchased from my perspective when I did my own chute couldn't wait to get out of there because I was there all day I was there from ten to let's say before I was about an hour and a half away from home and I'm starting to think I'm gonna hit rush hour traffic which in new york is not cute I haven't seen my kids all day I have homework to do when I get home I have to prepare tomorrow's lunches I have to bathe the kids you know my husband's not getting home till seven or whatever and I'm paying my sitter by the hour and this was really fun today but I don't want to be sitting there with my heart racing during our viewing session kind of just going yeah whatever just picked the pictures because let's just pick them because I got to get out of here I'd rather go home shower get my makeup off relax and just think about how awesome that experiences and kind of have a little anticipation think about like a first date with a guy right? I mean let's be honest if you give it all up the first day you're never gonna see him again right? But I mean really think about it but if you leave him with a little bit of curiosity and wanting and oh I wonder what else she's about he's gonna want to see you again you leave in a little bit of heart racing it's really the same thing you're in a relationship with this client you know leave her with a little excitement and anticipation and and give her a moment to revel in the experience before she has a chance to beat herself up over what defections look like so how long would you say if someone just didn't want to purchase that day um, you'd already set the expectation that they should come and purchased on that day, and they just want to go home and think about it. When should you set up the next are adjusting session. I set up my sessions usually about two weeks after their appointment. I guess what I'm saying is thiss experience happened where she did come back two weeks after it wasn't the same day. Oh, her as her photo session is sort of the same question you asked before. Like, what if she wants to think about it? She doesn't want to buy that day, right? She was she came with her husband and she did purchase that day when I explained, you know that this is the time to go ahead and purchase. She did go ahead and by it, but I think she was just wanting to sleep on it for the night before she I admitted those changes. Um, I'm going to say this and you might not love it, but there's something wrong with the communication there? I think if it were me and that happened, I would look at myself and say, what did I do wrong to sit, too that this happened? What am I not communicating properly, but she thought she had another day to sleep on it. You know, that's a fair statement because I've been so busy, it very well could be that I didn't communicate to her, we're relying on them to read something in an email and of course, clients don't read that. So so when I talked to them over the phone, I say to them that ball blam, when you're done with your session, that would be the time that we make an appointment for you to come back and do your photos that's when you make your purchasing decisions and you actually order your product, I set that up from the very beginning, even before they booked me. Then when they're done shooting, I say to them, okay, let's, set up an appointment for when you want to buy your photos and let me show you some samples of what we have so you can start thinking about what you think you like, and I'll make sure I send you the prices for everything when you leave in your confirmation so she doesn't know what she's buying things she's getting priceless, I'm using words, they're letting her know this is what we're doing. We're creating your book right now and to get it, you need to pay for it, so there is no I've never really had somebody say, well, I'm not ready to buy today, I'll come back so that's why? I guess I'm a little surprised, but I guess it's about the communications setting up the expectations from the beginning, I think that that's absolutely key is setting up the expectations, but I think I know as when I was a new photographer that it was also sort of confidence that I had in myself. Yeah, and so in my hind it was me going there to like, force and hope that the client would want to purchase the images, whereas if you flip that around and you're saying like, no, they know that this is not just a viewing session, this is the purchasing session and your job is you're there to guide them on helped um, that mindset shift, I think, for me made a really big difference this's why they're here with you this is this is where they're gonna do write so I'm not a sales person the way I've set up my list is and this is sort of what I was getting at when I met forty photos let's say I pull out the price list, so now we're now we're talking business here and I'll say to them, listen, here are your options, we have the classic albums and we have luxury albums both of them go up to thirty photos, let me show you what your options are if you wantto you're at forty photos let's look at them again if you love all of them I'll help you figure out an option to figure out where we're gonna put those forty photos but usually now they're at the point where they're like ok, I add it might cost me a little bit more but that's okay I mean things they get emotionally attached to if they can't get rid of the photos will find a way to make them fit in the album for a little bit more we'll add a spread or whatever it might be but these are my my standard prices and if they have twenty three photos in here well then this is the this is it right here this one or this one? So which one do you want? If they have thirty photos it's this one or this one so I don't have to sell them and this you guys will get when you get the video so you understand what I'm talking about you don't have to sell them. It fits into the category of the price list if you have thirty photos either getting this for this and it's really the same thing is just an album it's just this one might you might be able to get a different color cover and an m bossing and this one is a you know a little bit different comes in a pouch inside of a box. Whatever it is, what's the difference between the two albums and whatever they decide they want that's it I don't have to sell them on anything don't have to convince them that's what their pictures will fit in very simple so I don't have to put myself out there in that uncomfortable sales position where I'm like all right, let's, break out fifteen items, you know, this is the one that you know you can have cheapest and this is the one you could have the most expensive for me. I make the same markup on both albums, so I don't really care which one she buys. I'm not invested in that, so if she chooses the classic, I don't have to start going. Are you sure you don't want the luxury? I don't care. I'm making the same workup on both takes the pressure off of me take the pressure off of her that's. Why I don't charge four times what my vendors charge because this one cost me more so I just see what do I need my market to be? How much money do I need to make enough money for me to be happy? And then I had in the price of both albums, let's, say, so that's, why that one's a little bit more expensive genius I think it's really when you hear it you're like oh it's so clear but when you're going through it it's really hard yeah can I ask you next so let's say somebody wants to make a large purchase than they had planned on, which is great for you, but they don't have twelve hundred dollars okay and their bank account so easy I take credit cards, but even if you don't, I would take either checks or post dated cheques and that's fine, I'll take a thirty or fifty percent depending on the client retainer on these and I have them sign a form saying, I'm agreeing to purchases and I realized that it's not refundable non cancel herbal blah, blah, blah especially if you're selling digital images is nothing worse in sending a client, they're digital images and then going oh, I'm not happy with them I want to return them after I put them on my computer learned that lesson, you know? So what I'll do is I make them sign something saying it also helps with credit card companies because a lot of credit card companies like when I have an order over three thousand dollars, usually only released half the money until they they get the acknowledgement that the second that the order was shift and they get in and I'll release the second half of the money um but I mean, I've had sales that are like I said, like sixty five hundred dollars or five thousand dollars on it I understand if somebody doesn't want to give me five thousand hours right off the bat, so what I'll say is I'll take a thirty percent retainer now or a fifty percent retainer now you can pay off the rest of it however you want except that it has to be paid in full when I ordered the product. So once you approved the album proof or you approve anything else you place the rest of you order when I'm ready to order it I need to have your final payment now when it shifts not when it's delivered when it's bordered because I'm not ordering the album so I know it was already paid for I did that one time and one time only and I got burned yeah sorry lesson learned lesson never actually had a question about okay, so when you when you finish your clients um images do you see the first time they see the images when they come and sit down with you and then do you put them into a proofing gallery that they can kind of peru's or theirs? No gallery there's just you come in for your purchasing session and that's the last time we see the images until I have made your product okay, absolutely one disadvantages she can't go show her girlfriends or whatever but what I do is with the album proves the album proofs I'll put them up on a private gallery for her and she can share that was with her friends and then it's already edited images the images she's already purchased they concede that that's fine otherwise you're making the other images that she didn't buy accessible to her you don't do that because if she could see them any time she wants why would you buy them from you? You know if I was like okay courtney I want to buy five images but well, I have access the other ones yeah, ok then the all of a sudden there's not they're not valuable you ready? You've taken away their value and I could just see them whenever I want so I don't need to buy them. Thank you, general question on baby you covered this but just a little out of her client. How many hours would you say that you spend for each client from like the initial contact all the way to the delivery of the product? I have no idea because each one is different some clients are like ok see you when I come and that's it I never hear from them again you know, we did appreciate and that's it and some clients like I have a client now but um I'm working with who has sent me about ten pictures a day asking me about what you think it is half what do you think of that outfit? And I love that that's awesome, but she going to spend more time with her than somebody else? Um I would say the initial call is probably half an hour depreciate concert is about a half an hour assuming I don't speak to her again except besides sending like a little bit of a reminder your session is next week or whatnot. The session itself was three to five hours it takes me about an hour and a half to two hours too come up with her proves to make the slide show what not and then the um viewing session takes an hour to an hour and a half and then it's just a matter of I send out the final edit so I don't have to worry about that to evolve and then when it comes back, um it will take me you guys gonna laugh ten minutes to design an album? I'm so I'm so like I could do it in my sleep ten minutes to design an album ten minutes kind of no joke ten I know what I already know in my head when I'm shooting this is going to be also and this is going to be how I'm gonna lay out these pictures I don't I don't know if you can learn that or if that's something teachable it's just as I'm doing it I'm going oh yeah this is gonna work like this and I already know and she's speaking the pictures how I'm gonna lay them out it is very obvious to me um so it'll take me ten minutes throw it together can you talk second how you design your albums or wear wear kiss swat yeah online yeah it's so easy takes time in I don't remember exactly what the website is they keep changing it so it's like it's kiss albums right they have a swat designing for open I called swat s w o t all right swat I think oh yeah spot um I used that and what's cool about that too is even though I don't always order my albums from them although they do make nice albums I often order their little four by four albums as like a thank you for a client if she places a really nice orders you get like this I'm too little four by four albums that are the same as this just four by four and I'll give it to her to keep in her pocketbook if I think she might have a lot of friends that she wants to show her pictures to and um you know she'll be an evangelist for me is ordering street they're really really cute that come in a million different colors on dh so it's easy for me because then um it's already on there and they let you death they let you download the the high res j pegs on dh you could just throw them up like I throw them up in san folio but the client approve the album that's it nice and easy so jen we still have this is so great we have still have so many questions wait take some more yeah definitely break you're awesome how long are your these purchase meetings generally speaking on behalf of a friend here's the other thing when you confirm the session this is what you need to dio I'd like tio just write to you to confirm your session your session is from twelve to one on thursday make sure you say it's an hour because if not some of your clients will sit there for four hours and just keep talking what do you think it can we just see this again so what I like to do is say to them listen you have an hour usually a lot and hour and a half but once that hour and a half comes I'd like to say you know we're ready about half an hour past schedule so let's just make our final decisions and you know see where we go from there because you don't client we'll just sit there all day with you can I just see this again can I see that picture again? Because they know they're not gonna see them again afterwards, so they're feeling a little attached, so it sort of keeps the process under wraps. That's that's in line with the backbone, making sure that you got your time properly and we've a question from frost hillary so she doesn't have a studio and she works only in hotels. How can we put space between the session and viewing? Now? I do same day viewings because I already have the hotel room. Where else could I do a viewing if a home isn't an option? If it's possible, she should go to the client's home I do sometimes in my house, I have a home office, too. And although it's not the cutest little place because I just moved it still sort of full of boxes? Um, I'll just sit and listen. Ijust moved, but why don't you come to my house? I'll make you milk and cookies and we'll say it's pride still private. My kids be in school, just come over, you know, like I said, where I live is complicated because travel is annoying, so if a client lives in the city which is manhattan we all call it the city but if the pilots in the city or the five boroughs in new jersey I always meet here in my studio but if she lives out on long island I'm further out on long island all stater hey listen I'll make it easy for you why don't we just meet at my house and she's like awesome? I don't have to drive so far so I do it in both places and I don't often do it of my client's homes because again travels really annoying but if she can, doing in a client's home would be a great option okay, so I just want to remind everybody that we did have an entire section on pricing earlier because we're seeing some pricing questions coming in but we did that on the first day yes. And if they buy this program they get that key note with all the priceless senate. Exactly. Yes. Thank you for pointing that out. But can you just remind us for ronnie j what size your albums are sure. Eight by eight albums and the reason I do that I do so want five by seven but that's just to make my life look good so the reason I fell eight by eight because I think it's big enough to be amazing but it's still small enough to stick in a draw once you get into ten by ten or twelve by twelve now you start talking about a coffee table book and it's hard to get them in a draw so I think eight by eight is still small enough teo just kind of stick it and with nice about them is you get um you know, some nice spread this is what I was talking about and if you guys can see would like the three picture is making up a great spread there totally the same but totally different um and it's nice because you can get full page spreads this don't talk but she wanted her shoes is a full page spread it's like no editing solved in feet you know, like something like that people would love to see actually if you could flip through some of the other pages this is actually an album. This is her actual album. So yeah, I always like to combine I always like to start with the picture looking up if I can because you want to open the album and say like high make a connection and then usually put a picture looking down because we don't want them to compete so I try not to put too many pictures looking up the same he's just obviously want see this is why I think it's obvious it's obvious where the pictures go together so for me so that's why it's easy for me to make an album because I could see okay you know what these air these air the same there's a story to be told here so I'm just gonna put them together or there's so much the same I'm gonna put them apart so after you practice that it starts becoming obvious how you want the pictures there's like a pattern so now we're I usually divide them by outfits and they were moving into the next outfit full page spread having some fun I'll put together two pictures where she's looking down but like I said almost never to pictures were there looking up is there a maximum amount of images you will put on spread there's no maximum anything the more you want the more you want to spend that's awesome I made an album once that literally had sixty five pages I mean like but purser yes, I wanted to go over for pictures. Okay, thanks. Yeah. So like that three or four is the most I'll never put um I usually tell my finds a two to three pictures for spread so if I want to add a spread I could calculate how many more spreads I'm actually gonna need just based on the number of pictures so here's four I wouldn't go over for but again we're telling a story with the fabric this is kind of like what we did yesterday can I ask do you always have black pages? No, I do white also she requested but I usually do right? She requested black is really beautiful. Done. This book is found in top grain tell hyde you knew how to care for your book. Very nice. And this is, uh like, you know, straight off the press on this one is, um the one season the white one. This is the one from white house custom color to be fair and black and whites for whoever can I feel black and white question? Yeah, because I had seen this a couple times earlier. How do you decide or just a client ever, rick quest black and white images and decide which ones. Yeah, clients usually request otherwise, I don't usually do black and way it's just not, you know, unless something screams black and white to me, most of my clients by color images. Um but if I think something is gonna look really great in black and white, I'll just try it. Or if they request bike and white, I'll just take the ones I think you're gonna look past the black and white and throw them together in the album and usually they like them same girl, obviously just again before the most I would go this was so much fun, this was it the cosmo this was like, you know the hall into the sweets are mirrored so you confess it straight out of camera like this that was so fun don't just black and white and whenever I do black and whites on the spread I make sure they're all black and white I don't like to mix colors black and white on a spread good one one more question yeah, I have a question about the purchasing session you tell her that these are not fine final edits and is this where she's saying oh, could you like make one skin here and you're just making a note of that yeah, I did what I usually say to her is keeping my niece or what we call lightly edited images um so she might say here for example oh, I hate had my hairs on my arm like that. Can you fix that? Yeah, sure I can fix that or no it's not really fixable so you know what let's go with that image instead that's why I sway her if she wants me to fix something super crazy since I hate editing, I'll sway her away from the picture I know it sounds manipulative but it's really not it's a matter of doing what's right? I don't want to spend all that time making a picture into something that it's really not that's not the point of what I'm doing